A I R W O R K S S T U D I O

COLOR THE WIND

2011-08-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

We rarely exhibit our kites indoors. They are outdoor creatures, made for the winds, made to move and dance under the clouds with the sun shining brightly and illuminating their skins in the brightest colors imaginable. We were recently offered a show at the local Art Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. The timing worked perfectly with our kite festival calendar and the space in the large round gallery exhibition hall at the art center proved a perfect showplace for the kites. The high ceiling overhead could support numerous kites in flying positions while the surrounding gallery walls worked for showing our new sets of new photo kites.

The exhibit entry has a few traditional Japanese kites representing the initial inspiration in delving into the art and craft of kite making back in 1977 when, while living in Hawaii, I started making kites in earnest. I was introduced to Japanese kites through a book entitled “The Art of the Japanese Kite” by artist & writer, Tal Streeter. The definitive collection of stories from his travels around Japan gave insights into the deep cultural roots and fascinating tales of meetings with the old kite masters, many of whom were reaching an age when their craft would pass with them.

Since then and after many travels throughout the world attending international kite festivals, I’ve learned much from friendships with other kite makers. Around the world each country visited has unveiled the culture and depth of this simple air craft made from paper, string and sticks. From Europe to India, Indonesia to Japan, New Zealand to the US, each country has a very unique history that is wrapped tightly into the culture and traditions of flying. The kites at the entry to the exhibit represent kite makers and friends from Japan who either gave or traded a kite for one of mine.

Sky & Desert - Melanie Walker

The kites in the exhibition represent a history not only of my kites but also my partner, Melanie Walker’s kites who joined me in 1995 and started making kites as well. Many of her recent kites were produced with a photo printing on polyester technique which involves a dye sublimate digital printing process. This is a new and exciting realm that has opened up many possibilities of combining her first passion in photographic processes with kite making. Some of the photo kites are first prints of mine as well.

House & Artichoke kites - Melanie Walker

Venice House - George Peters

Fish 1 - George Peters

Zebra kite - Melanie Walker

Rabbit Kite & Househead with Bunny - Melanie Walker

The other kites in the exhibition feature various kite designs of ours that have been developed through the rough school of trial and error. It took maybe two years early on for a kite of mine to finally soar to a high angle and just stay up there. Many kite ‘bones’ were broke in the process of learning the subtle aerodynamic principles of kite aeronautics. The early kites made by traditional Japanese means with carefully split, shaved and balanced bamboo spars very soon gave way to modern materials of fiberglass rod, tube and sewn nylon covers. These new materials were, for the most part, crash proof.

Kites have given an appreciation of the simple act of watching the sky and participating in an act of celebration with the winds. It’s a peaceful pursuit, above it all, in the limitless expanse of overhead space. It is like saying, “Here I am”, swimming in the sky, fishing with no lure, no barb, making no political statement, and letting the wind pull our heavenly tether out higher and higher. The gatherings at the international kite festivals around the world are like a high wire circus act putting colorful paint dabs on the blue canvas overhead.

Pipes - George Peters

Bird Man & Kat Man kites - George Peters

Artichoke Kite - Melanie Walker

Leopard Man, Pod kite & Falling Man kite - George Peters

Chevron Edo kite - George Peters

To see more photos from the "Color the Wind" kite exhibition, go to the Flikr slide show.

SKYS OVER ITALY

2011-06-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Monumento al Aquiloni Signora Volantino

(Monument to the Lady Kite Flyer)

Flying at the Cervia & Venice International Kite Festivals

There is something grand about Italy. Maybe it’s the embedded history on every wall and each face. Or is it those clear skies and steady winds? When we were asked to come to Italy for two kite festivals, one in a little beach bagno community of Pinarella near Cervia and a second on the Lido di Venezia just outside of Venice on the Adriatic, we jumped at the chance.

our kite and banner display in Cervia

our kites after a day on the beach..

The festival of Cervia was held in a new location this year on a bigger beach, more room to fly, and a perfect wind for the ten day festival. Each day glistened with a sky full of kites brought from all over the world hovering overhead on the blue sky gallery ceiling. Each day brought great pictures of the scene and great times with friends we’ve known for many years. Sometimes it’s hard not to just pinch ourselves to make sure we’re not just dreaming this life up.

Each day began with a visit to ‘our’ bagno to open our storage lockers and carry the kites, banners and flying gear to the beachside. Setting up the show is always like putting on a circus. Banners go up, the colors are displayed, the colorful aerial acts start to rise to the big blue top overhead on kite lines angled up to the sky. Some people stand gazing at their addition to the overhead scene, others group together in beach chairs like fishermen watching their lines. We tend to try to see how many kites we can put up there at once… a constant challenge like juggling balls. The kites are tethered to sand bags and spread across the beach so that each kite has some airspace. When the wind is ‘clean’, like straight off the sea, the kites claim their space up there and hang almost motionless drifting together in an overhead aerial sky dance. I never tire from watching this.

the Sardinian ribbon poles

The days passed with lunch treats of sumptuous food Italian style. In the evenings we all gathered at a central hotel along the beach boulevard of Pinarella that gave us a spectacular banquet each night. The waiters and waitresses rushed the plates in a frenzy of service keeping the pasta at just the right temperature. It is a hard job serving eighty hungry kite flyers each night.

the hotel dining room

behind the kitchen doors..

The prima chef

The festival drew big crowds of people each day. The beach tourist season was just starting and the kite festival, organized by Claudio Capelli and his daughter, Caterina, of ArteVento was a welcome event in this community of beach houses, hotels, bagno beach clubs and restaurants. I believe this was the 31^st annual kite festival, one of the longest running kite festivals in Europe.

Makoto Ohye's kite display

on the lido del Venezia

One might ask how a group of kite people can keep the colors up there for a full ten days on a beach without serious mental damage? The routine quickly takes front stage as every morning the kite flyers would wander in, choosing a spot on the beach to set up their ground displays, put up some shade and let a first lined kite up into the overhead sky circus. Over the course of the day the sky gets thick with kites dancing in tight formations over the beach. At about noon there were spontaneous little gatherings hosted by different country delegations for a refreshing drink and a taste of each favorite international cuisine. We hosted a US group picnic in our beach encampment serving ‘mini-Mac’ appetizers, mini pizzas, brown and white ‘wine’ (Coke and Sprite) and a big spread of small bite appetizers that were gobbled up in record time….then everyone migrated over to the German vodka tasting.

The USA beach party

Each day we visit with kite flyers down the beach, keeping a sharp eye on our kite group making sure that they stay up and are not lost into the nearby pine forest or on the roofs of the bagnos. As the day goes on the wind always gets perfect as the stomach growls for dinner. Everyone then meets at the local dinner hosting hotel for drinks and a delicious Italian meal each night.

The second weekend after a disappointing rainy Saturday night fly evening that washed out the planned event we had a glorious last day in Cervia/Pinarella and then headed North to Venice the next morning.

Claudio Capeli at the announcer's table

the sky over Lido Venezia

The Venice festival was attended by a smaller group of kite flyers from the Cervia event. Since this was the first festival for the Lido of Venice Claudio and Caterina were asked to help to organize the group of kite flyers chosen for the trip. Many details were kept a bit fuzzy but the kite flyers were ready for anything. Arriving at the field we were greeted by a beach full of umbrellas set up for the beach season on the rather small beach at the east side of the Lido. A large overhead steel pier bisected what was left of the beach. Not much room to fly kites or put up a large show. After a day of trying out the tight space it was decided to move the festival down the beach to another location in front of a large hotel that was closed at the time and being refurbished. The spot was perfect as we all spread our overhead kite show down the long beach.

Each day was a perfect picture of kite fun. Crowds of people came and enjoyed the show despite the fact that the weekend featured some competition in Venice proper...the Pope was there on a special visit and the canals and squares were packed to the hilt with tourists and followers of the Vatican. Banners we set up down the beach. Kites floated overhead and each day was almost perfect conditions.

The last day we were the last on the beach packing up kites. Behind us an ominous dark sky loomed. Suddenly as the last of the kites were packed in our bags and we started to take down the banners, the wind picked up to speed sending an intense sand storm across the beach. Banners flew off poles, sand bag anchors blew tumbling and our Italy tans were sandblasted away.

The next day was spent dumping sand out of the bags and repacking in the garden of our hotel. We were told that plans had changed for our bus trip to the airport in Bologna and we would have to make it to the Venice train station ourselves… with our eight bags of gear and luggage. Somehow we managed to hook and strap everything with wheels together in a long train of gear and rolled down the main street of the Venice Lido to the water bus to the train station. One last trip through down the Grand Canal made us want to come again, again and again. Ciao Italy!

the kite train home

For more pictures of the Cervia and Venice International kite festival go to the Airworks Studio Flikr Slide Show.

KITES & FLIGHTS

2011-04-14T12:09:00.001-07:00

While in Jacksonville installing the 'Sky Bridges' aerial sculpture at the airport we installed our kite exhibition "Kites & Flights" in the Haskell Gallery there. The show features kites from our collection made by Melanie and myself over the years. It is a great pleasure to see the kites in an environment that is so public and available to people who are in transit, waiting for arriving friends and family and need a little diversion and vision into the world of kites. What better place than an airport!

The idea for the show came from early discussions with the airport's public art commission. We were presenting our proposal ideas for the newly renovated main connector bridge to the concourses and showed a few pictures of our kite works. The kites have been a big inspiration for the themes and aerial sculpture we've done in the public art realm over the years so it was good to put up a show in conjunction with the installation of the permanent 'Sky Bridges' sculpture.

Cabeth Cornelius who manages the Haskell Gallery and the airport's public art collection encouraged us to combine the show with the completion and dedication ceremony for the commissioned work. We ended up pulling many of the kites that have been our dedicated 'show' kites. These are either ones that we prefer not to fly at the kite festivals to keep them in good condition or prototype and test kites that, how should I say it, preformed slightly below our international kite festival criteria. Ok... they didn't fly so great. Most of the kites exhibited fly well. It does take a special appreciation level to see the kites close up in the intimate gallery space. We're proud of the craft involved in kite making and like it when people can get close up to the kites to appreciate that aspect. Many people who came to the show opening enjoyed the show and colors. Some told us it was the best show they have seen in the gallery.

The show opened a couple days after the last hanging cable was crimped on the 'Sky Bridges' sculpture on March 24th and will continue until July 14th 2011. If you're flying through Jacksonville anytime soon, please stop by and see the show.... as well as the 'Sky Bridges' aerial sculpture. Can't miss it. Just look up before you go down to baggage claim.

live music for the opening!

Melanie and George at the opening of the show 'Kites & Flights'

For more images from 'Kites & Flights' go to our Flikr slide show

SKY BRIDGES - Jacksonville International Airport

2011-04-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

If you think of public art the most public place one can imagine would be the busy terminals and of our international airports. They are extraordinary transit zones and places where humanity is on the move. Both Melanie and I confessed to each other that we liked going to airports in our youth just to witness the drama of air travelers. There are lots of people waiting which is why I always took a sketch book to draw people there. People are busy sleeping, reading papers, checking their cell phones, hurrying to their flights and generally hanging out. In the rush of humanity on the go are people arriving, departing and meeting their loved ones in great shows of public emotion. Airports now have all distractions of ordinary street life with few places for rest. Occasionally there are rest zones for art to occupy.

In all the years we have been applying for public art projects both individually and collaboratively, airports have been at the top of our list. The link to aerial sculpture inspires much of what the work of Airworks Studio has been about for a very long time. From the flying forms of kites to banner installations, atmospheric suspended installation sculptures and kinetic wind sculptures. All have the element of flight and the movement of air over form. We have applied for close to a couple dozen airport calls for public art commissions. I became a finalist back in 1994 for the Denver International Airport before I was ready for a seriously large scale work. We’ve also been finalists for the Philadelphia International Airport arrivals hall.

Last year we were selected for a newly renovated concourse connector bridge at the Jacksonville International Airport in Florida. We had presented a proposal to the art selection committee of a simple group of suspended truss-like forms in gentle curves through the overhead space. We chose materials that were reflective, light reactive, transparent and colorful to cover the truss forms and give a light and airy atmospheric effect to the ceiling of the bridgeway.

the computer 3D model

The forms derived from the bridges of airplane routes one sees on those flight maps in the in-flight magazines that show arching lines connecting cities to each other. The paths of airplanes make contrails across the skies each day connecting people on these bridges across the sky. The white cloud lines are made from crystallized vapor trails and sometimes in the right weather conditions the sunlight catches prismatic ‘sun dog’ parhelion effects along the edges.

Another strong influence in our design for the works was the great number of bridges in the downtown and river front areas of the city of Jacksonville. There are bridges crossing the St. John river that reflect many eras of civil engineering from the classic steel truss bridges made with rivets and human sweat to the extraordinary gravity defying forms of the ultra modern bridges . The engineering of these bridges is breathtaking and the Acosta Bridge, the blue truss elevator bridge of Main Street and the harp-like lines of the Dames Point Bridge make Jacksonville one of the best bridge cities in the country.

Work began in late summer of 2010 constructing the fiberglass rod frame trusses while we searched for a larger studio space for the fabrication processes. Our rear alley awning studio served as a construction space while storing the 20’ long truss units in the only space available… our back yard. Soon the weather dictated that we hurry with our search for an indoor studio in Boulder. After two months of searching we finally found a perfect space. It was a high end used car showroom just east of town with just enough space to store the frames overhead on the ceiling and brought down to the floor tables to complete the covering process.

We recruited three university graduate students we’ve worked with before to help us with the laborious task of the covering the trusses with a lace work of aluminum, polycarbonate and dichroic materials. This process took us two months and about two or three thousand screws to attach all of the materials to the fiberglass frames. Spencer, Evan & Marianna worked tirelessly with us through long days to get everything done and ready for shipment.

the studio got really full

the units arrived at the airport... at the end of the ticketing counters

the cabling center

When all fifteen twenty foot truss units were complete everything was wrapped for the packing and shipping in a large cavernous fifty three foot trailer truck. We flew in six days later to meet the truck at the airport. Everything arrived in good condition thanks to carefully roped and strapped supports. The trusses were then carried into the front door of the airport and put in a staging area at the end of the airport ticketing area. We set to work immediately putting in a 10pm to 4am work shift each night for the six nights it would take to install the hanging eyebolts into the ceiling, the cables and the trusses. Fortunately we contacted a local sign company and arranged for some assistance with the hanging operation. Austin, Cleave and Larry from Harbinger Sign Company were tireless in their help in getting everything up.

It all went like clockwork except for one small slip on my part the first night. While tapping the threads for an eye bolt to the ceiling steel tube beams the tap tool broke in my hand and dropped twenty five feet to the floor. I thought it had bounced harmlessly down the escalator below me. Further inspection by the airport maintenance crew later that night revealed the tool had bounced and ricocheted off of a tempered glass panel, shattering it into a spider web of broken glass. This may be the first serious damage done during an installation in over 35 years. My bad!

After a week all the trusses were cabled to the ceiling we switched gears to hang a kite show in the Haskell airport art gallery at the request of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority and public art director, Cabeth Cornelius. We had brought a group of exhibition art kites with us for ‘Kites & Flights’ that would be shown in conjunction with the dedication opening of the ‘Sky Bridges’ aerial sculpture for the airport.

Lots of people came for the dedication and kite exhibit to see the final results of the Sky Bridges install. We hear many compliments for the works and everyone had great things to say about how well the ‘Sky Bridges’ sculpture fits the new concourse bridge way. A step back to see what we had done and we were ready to make our way home again.

Melanie speaking

and George speaking

To see a slide show of the complete process go to our Flikr site.

THREE IN THE AIR, ONE IN THE NEST

2011-01-29T22:03:00.002-08:00

"CIRCUMSPECTRUM"

Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center, Los Angleles

Last year we completed three projects at our studio installing two here in Colorado and one in Los Angeles. We’re also working on our first airport public art commission for the Jacksonville International Airport in Florida that will be installed in March. The size of this project made us have to expand into a larger space to construct the parts and pieces of it that will then be put into a large eighteen wheeler and sped to it’s destination for the install.

The first project was completed last April for the City of Broomfield here in Colorado for the Municipal building lobby. We designed a series of leaf mobiles for the space that move gently in the air currents overhead. The mobiles are made from fiberglass sunscreen, fiberglass rods with acrylic coloring added using masking techniques.

"LEAF & FEATHER"

I especially liked the shadow patterns on the spray paint board...

In May and June we traveled to Los Angeles to install another series of mobiles for the newly renovated Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center. The central atrium area provided lots of light for the group of colorful units strung to the upper beams of the skylight. The work moves slowly in the natural air currents and we’re pleased with the way it came out.

"CIRCUMSPECTRUM"

During the summer we started work on a series of wind vanes for an exterior project in City Park of Aurora east of Denver. After many start and stop delays from the renovation and landscape contractors for the park the project was finally installed before the first snow fell in December. The wind vanes turn on 25’ aluminum poles and are constructed of aluminum punched metal screen and aluminum channel and square pipe.

"SOLAR WINDS"

In August we began constructing the frameworks for “Sky Bridges” for the Jacksonville International Airport. The long arched triangular trusses were assembled at our home studio outdoor workspace and quickly took over our small yard while we looked for a larger studio to work in. After a couple months of looking all over Boulder and surrounding communities we finally found an ample and well lit auto showroom that was perfect for our needs.

With a great crew of studio assistants we are now in the final stages of fabrication covering the trusses with mirrored and light reactive materials that will transform the connector bridge of the airport for travelers heading to the concourses from the main ticketing area. We’re excited about the project and trying to imagine the total light effect of the work in the space.

"SKY BRIDGES"

proposal model

a half of the frames finished and stored in our yard

Melanie calling for more materials

The tool table in the outdoor space.

then we moved the operation into a larger space

the units needed to go overhead for storage while working below

the work crew adding the shiny bits in the new studio

We'll be doing some periodic updates on the airport project as it continues..

CERVIA INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL

2010-05-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

The kite festivals that we attend around the world each have their own particular celebratory nature. Some are huge events attracting thousands of spectators and hundreds of kite flyers around the world. They are like a circus aerial act, with performers launching their creations into the overhead arena, white lines stretching upward to the giant sky blue top tent overhead.

We flew to Cervia,

Italy

recently to attend the 30^th annual Cervia International Kite Festival. That number, by all standards for kite festivals, is a long time running. There are only a handful of festivals that have that sort of history and still have the same organizers at the helm. This festival was started by Claudio Capeli, an artist and painter turned kite maker and then kite festival organizer. His daughter, Caterina always at his side in the early days eventually came on board as a co-organizer for the festival. His wife Giovana, helps and manages the kite store tent on the field.

From Germany, Anke Saur's Dot kite ..150 bridle lines!

Cervia is on the upper calf of the boot of Italy, about an hour from Bologna near Ravena on the seaside. As many times as I’ve been there as a participant, I’ve experienced the best winds along with some of the best kite flyers and makers in the world. This particular festival is a favorite among the art kite makers. It is a sky gallery of the most unusual and unique flying creations anywhere. People gather to share ideas and relax in this paradise of sun, sand, wind and clear blue skies.

Although the event spans two weekends, the days pass gently with no particular schedule except adding as much color and movement to the sky overhead as possible. It is rare that Melanie and I experience a kite festival with such perfect gentle and even winds letting us send almost every single kite in our tightly packed bags overhead all at once. When that happens, we hold our breath a bit hoping that it all stays aloft with no wayward kite bringing the whole show swirling to the ground. And, yes, that happened a few times as well. Tangles are a great way of meeting new kite friends.

a flying paper wonder by Austrian kite maker, Anna Rubin

The festival used to be held in the city of Cervia proper on a large beach near the city center. A few years ago, it was moved south to the nearby beach community of Pinarella. The beaches are lined with the familiar beach club bagnos that are normally full at peak summer season. The festival held at the end of April and beginning of May is a welcome early season opener for the town and businesses as kite flyers flock to this place each year.

A parkland strip of pine trees separates the beaches from the town creating a pleasant buffer between the cars, restaurants and bars and the beach scene. Walking there from the town each morning was like entering another world. A row of tents were set up along the beach selling all sorts of goods including kite sellers, curious curios and clothing waving on hangers in the sea breeze. A short distance from the kite fields a large tent housed the children’s kite workshop. Each day streams of kids would enter the tent and make kites guided by some of the international kite flyers. At the end of each session they would hurry to the beach to try out their creations. The sky would bloom into a garden of dancing kites held by excited children.

Melanie relaxing under my Metro Man kite

The kite field was split into several venues. One demonstration area reserved for the aerial acts of supreme sport kite teams and the king of multiple stunt kite flying, Ray Bethel from Vancouver, BC Canada. Further up the field were single line kite flyers with some astounding ground displays of banners, tents, sand ants, beach art, spinning, floating and flying aerial art of all forms. Further up the beach, the larger kites floated overhead dwarfing the handlers camped out at the enormous sand bag and stake anchor points. The scene through the week passed with these giant floating creatures buffeting in the winds while some slept under the kite shadows or passed the time chatting with old kite friends.

The kid's kite workshop tent was busy

Volker Hoberg's No Limit giant inflatable kites from Germany

A fine Swiss Tetra kite and my Wrap Man and Dot Man kites behind

Our kite array and banners

A portfolio of fine paper kites

A very relaxed kite flyer

Banners by the seaside

Ready for launch

The public area beach side

It’s a scene that I’m familiar with but somehow, each time creates a memory like a dream that drifts by like a colorful cloud and then, while on the plane flying home, exhausted with warm and happy tan faces reminds us why we do this. It’s just so much fun! And

Italy

?...I have a hard time thinking of a finer place to pass the time under the Italian sun, on a beach with a few hundred kites overhead dancing in the perfect winds. Grazia Mille, Cervia! Until next time, Ciao!

For more photos of the Cervia International Kite Festival go to the Flickr slide show

SLEEPWALKING SONGS

2010-04-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

We recently installed some of our works in a joint exhibit at the Burris Hall Gallery at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. We just drove down to disassemble the show but here is a synopsis of the show.

Melanie showed a series of her collaged metal plate photographic shadow box works as well as four of a series of House Head prints. The man in the photos is her closest associate and collaborator… me. Also included were our camera peep viewers from a show entitled “Cameraeye Voyaguer”, a cabinet installation of Melanie’s bird houses entitled “Bird Cage of Socrates” and a cabinet installation of mine entitled “Plato’s Cave”

The Bird Cage of Socrates derives from a intellectual dialogue with Theaetetus where Socrates equated the human thought process comparing it to grabbing onto a bird (truth) in an aviary of the mind. Many birds fly by and the chance of catching what one hopes to be a truth in the maelstrom of the mind is a daunting task.

Plato’s Cave relates to his allegorical story about the human mind discerning truth from illusion. Watching dancing shadows on the wall of a cave can be one form of illusion the same as most mediated experiences of reality … ie. television and Youtube. The source of the shadows the light of knowledge is, of course, the greater of the reality and leads one out of the cave of ignorance. The installation features wrinkled paper, about a thousand small paper cut-out moths suspended from the ceiling and a single light bulb.

Also included in this part of the gallery was an installation work of mine entitled “Otto’s Dream”. One large airplane in flames followed by four smaller airplane forms are suspended from the ceiling. Otto Lilianthal was the first to make a heavier than air flight using a glider. Essentially, he was the first man to fly with wings. He made two thousand flights using his gliders from a specially built conical hill outside of Berlin in the 1890’s, inspiring the Wright Brothers in their pursuit of controlled, powered flight. Lilianthal firmly believed the if man learned to fly, there would be no borders to protect and peace would prevail. He was critically injured after a crash and his last dying words were “Small sacrifices must be made”.

Two of Melanie’s kites were included in the show as well. One with an image of a toy house and another from her animal series of photographic tableaus featuring a rabbit headed figure and a rabbit marionette in the woods.

For more photos from the "Sleepwalking Songs" exhibition visit the Airworks Flikr slide show.

CATCHING IDEAS FROM THIN AIR

2010-01-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

When not playing with the winds we are often inside our studio environment doing works that sometimes confound us and keep us from sleeping. Usually this happens when we have a particular public art deadline for a proposal. Maybe I need to explain this process a bit more.

We are public artists both in our kite works and our commissioned aerial sculpture works. The process goes something like this… Step one is scouring the internet calls for art throughout the country. We get announcements through the public 1% for Art programs that are generally government run agencies in all of the states and many cities in the US. A promising project may be a great architectural space or the art committee may even be asking for aerial sculpture in particular for either inside a large atrium space or an outdoor kinetic work. We then review the requirements for applying by sending in images of what we’ve done, resumes, a description of how we work and interest in the project and then send it off. This part is probably the simplest part of the public art process.

Next comes the anticipation, the waiting, the wondering if they forgot us. Nine times out of ten a couple months fly by and we forget about which ones we have applied for. “It’s the economy” we tell ourselves, or, “Maybe we should email them to see if they got our application”. Then the day after we get a polite letter in the mail saying, “Thank you for your application… Many artists applied and, unfortunately you were not chosen in the finalist phase”. The letter then gets added to our rejections file which, over the time period of close to twenty eight years has gotten quite thick.

But, like fishing, there are many casts into the blue beyond and occasionally we do catch one or two. The letter begins something like, ”Thank you for applying. The art committee has convened and has chosen you as one of three (or seven, or twelve) finalists for the project”. This is followed by the both of us cheering and dancing about the room. Then the details are read about the period of time we will have for developing the idea. This is always much too short a time given the processes involved in coming up with a genious idea and crafting it into a bona fide proposal presentation.

Generally we have a month to pull everything together. This means careful researching of the institution or business, finding out appropriate themes, pouring over the architectural plans supplied by the architect, hours and days on the computer making a 3D computer model of the space to familiarize ourselves with the building or area, sketching out the “wild and wacky” ideas, refining to forty other ideas, drawing some more until it enters our dreams, going through night sweats and technical tremors. This is the most difficult stage. Sometimes whole sketchbooks are filled and then we return to our first page idea and decide that’s the best one. Other times it is just plain long and hard work contained in a process I like to call “drawing from the deep well”.

For many years this process followed the building of a physical model of the space. These were generally finely detailed models made for the proposal presentation. The architectural space often defines what can go into it. By constructing a model early in the process and spending a lot of time with it, the vision often comes just at the point of desperation. Some call it the ‘Ah-Ha!’- moment. We just call it the “Quick! Get it into the model …. We’re presenting next week!”- dash.

What follows is a generally well rehearsed dance that verges on frenzy. We gather and research the materials for the proposal, figure out the processes, construction, how we get it to the site, how it gets installed, all the costs are calculated into a detailed budgeting for the project, in a word, all the nuts and bolts. These are plugged into our overall plan, detailed drawings are made along with computer renderings using photos of the model.

The physical models have proven to be a necessary step in the presentation of our ideas. Being visual artists we tend to like showing the ideas directly. We call this the “Doll House” effect. Not only are they useful for us in developing a concept but they are invaluable in presenting our ideas to others. The miniature version speaks volumes above the pages of descriptions that are written describing our design intent, narrative descriptions and processes. And, of course, traveling with a large scale architectural model can involve some difficult maneuvers through airports.

We have constructed our models in hotel rooms the night before a presentation after arriving. We have shipped them by FedEx and prayed that they would arrive in time for our presentation. We have done international projects that were proposed using primarily emailed photos directly from our model. We have never (so far!) tripped and dropped our model at the doorway to the presentation room.

What happens in the proposal presentation room is strictly confidential and not for discussion here but there is a lot of hand wringing before hand. Often we wait outside the closed presentation room while another finalist is presenting their proposal. Butterflies tie knots in our stomachs as we wait. And after our presentation is over and all the questions are answered we leave the room with the art committee thanking us for our presentation and ushering in the next artist who is sitting outside with presentation boards, model and that familiar nervous look.

We traveled to Jacksonville, Florida last month, presenting for a project for the Jacksonville Airport there. We have close to seventy large public art projects we have won commissions for over the years. They are in libraries, universities, corporate headquarters, rec centers, schools and health care facilities. We have applied for maybe a couple dozen airport commissions. We figured it would be a good match with us doing aerial inspired works based on kites and using air as a theme and medium for our art. Let’s just say we have added to our rejection pile and have not received any positive notice from the airport arts commissions that decide on these matters. Then, a couple days after returning to Colorado we received an email ….starting with “Congratulations, you have been selected” from the Jacksonville Airport Arts Commission….followed immediately by our little dance for joy around the room and then our “Oh No!” dance….”Now we have to make it!”

Some proposal drawings and models for the connector bridge to the gates at the Jacksonville International Airport.

The project is set to be installed November 2010. Fly through there and see "Air Bridges".

THE BOULDER JANUARY 1ST KITE FLY

2010-01-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

Each year since I came to Boulder in 1982, I got together with Jim and George, the owners of the Into The Wind kite store to do a little celebratory 1st day of the year kite fly. We would meet in a nearby high school soccer field in the bitter cold and attempt to fly kites with frozen fingers. Then a year later up on top of “Bald Mountain” in the foothills of the Rockies just above Boulder for a fantastic view of the plains spread out below. It was always exhilarating after the long trek to the top in the freezing Colorado weather to unfurl our kites and send them up into the chilly winds.

We’ve managed to keep up this tradition despite Jim’s passing many years back and have been joined by many other friends over the years. Fools on the hill … flying kites when most sane people would be inside nursing a hangover from the New Year’s party the night before. I always thought kite flying is the best way to start a new year off to clear the air and watch the sky.

I think this might be the twenty seventh annual New Year’s Day kite fly. Some of those days on the hill were bitter cold, others warm and almost balmy with winds swirling around the top of Bald Mountain making the kites circle lazily overhead in 360 degree wind shifts. One time a full force blizzard hit as Melanie and I trudged up to the top to get the kites ready. We didn’t think anyone else would join us. Nobody would be that crazy. The road up was almost impassible with blowing snow. On top, out of the mist came friend Tom and his whole family like some apparition yelling our names with his kites under arm. Two other friends showed up and we flew in the blinding snow storm. The kites flew ten or twenty feet overhead but you couldn’t see them. You could only hear the flapping of nylon and feel the tugging of the line. That was one of the best kite flying days ever!

We moved the kite fly off of the top of the mountain and down to the prairie a few years ago. Better winds down below. Then when a Boulder Open Space ranger happened by last year and told us we had to apply for a permit to fly kites there we decided to move the event again. This year we flew in a little used city park on the east side of Boulder near the local airport. It was the perfect place with a big kite field, views of the foothills and the ‘Flatirons’, spectacular clouds over the continental divide and an audience of prairie dogs.

Kites were flown, banners rippled in the sparse winds, hot chocolate and apple cider bubbled on a camp stove with cookies served. A nearby sledding hill helped during the doldrums with some great slides. About fifty friends and friends of friends showed up to celebrate decorating sled kites and flying them in the gentle breeze.

Partway through the day a Boulder Police squad car pulled up into the parking lot. We thought we were going to be busted for flying without a permit or something. He watched the event from inside the police car for a while then we heard the crackle of his loud speaker switched on. “Very cool” he said in a dry speaker voice. Someone on the field yelled to him to come and join us. He clicked on again and said “I wish I could”… and then drove away.

The sun sank behind the mountain top as we cleared up the kites, banners and unfinished hot chocolate. It was the perfect day for sky watching and kite flying while welcoming in a brand new year. Come and join us next year!

SAN VITO, SICILY INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL

2009-06-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

We packed our kites and jumped on the plane headed to the island of Sicily for a taste of Italy and to test the winds along the blue shores of San Vito on the North West tip of the island that is being kicked by the boot of Italy. The festival was the first for this area that promised a clean onshore wind, sunny and warm Mediterranean weather, great food, Sicilian hospitality and a group of some of our favorite kite making friends from around the world. What could be better?

Kite flyers were gathered for the event by kite artist and festival organizer, Claudio Cappeli and his daughter Caterina. Included were flyers from France, Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ghana, Mexico and the U.S. Maria Gabriella and Ignacio Billera of Trapani Eventi organized the event details and hospitality in San Vito lo Capo.

We were greeted by a near perfect kite flying day for the first weekend of the ten day festival as everyone put everything into the sky to fill the beach with our kites. Some took to the cool waist deep waters holding their lines to the kite show overhead and commenting, “It doesn’t get much better than this”.

While some of the other days offered less than perfect winds, each day offered an array of activities including trips to small groups of kite flyers out to communities around San Vito for kite flying demonstrations and sight seeing forays. We were taken to nearby the seaside town of Trapani visiting the historic salt fields with old wind mill towers that used to pump the sea water into the evaporative salt beds. We then drove to an old stone hill village of Salemi in an area that was destroyed by a powerful earthquake in 1968. Salemi suffered from major damage and was reconstructed. We flew kites at the hill top church and from the fortress castle towers.

We then traveled to the nearby village of Gibelllini. This rural town was at the epicenter of the earthquake and was totally destroyed. Three thousand people perished in the quake while sleeping in their stone houses. The entire town was leveled in the disaster. As a memorial to the victims Italian artist Alberto Burri was commissioned to create a monument of concrete at the site of the town. The result is a haunting maze of concrete covering the hillside. We flew for the spirits entombed there. We visited the new village of Gibellini Nouva that was built seven kilometers from the original town. All the surviving families were moved to this new villiage. Italian architects and artists designed the new town filled with memorials to the victims and families lost in the disaster. The new town modern apartments and condos obviously lacked the Sicilian flavor and the tight and narrow street corridors bustling with the sounds of families.

Returning to the kite festival, each day we were treated to lunches in different local restaurants, tasting the pleasures of Sicilian food. Cous Cous dishes are a specialty in Sicily and reflect the close interaction with North African cuisines. Along with the summer kite festival, there’s also an international cous cous festival in San Vito with the streets filled with tent kitchens serving a staggering variety of the dish.

While some would say that flying kites for ten days on the Mediterranean while being fed delicious lunches, dinners and gelato is probably close to being the perfect job description. Another side of the job is carrying two hundred pounds of kites back and forth to the flying field each day, setting up the display of banners and kites, keeping things flying, dealing with shifting winds, kite crashes into the sea, avoiding dehydration, sunburn and sunstroke, chasing down kites that get cut down, climbing trees or darting between the traffic to recover them. Then again, it was still pretty fun.

The last weekend of flying brought a near perfect night fly and a day of clean enough winds to set a world record for shoulder to shoulder single line kite flying. I think there were about twelve of us in a tight lineup with kites aloft.

When all the kites were packed up on Sunday and the kite flyers gathered for a last meal in the dinner tent the wind picked up and started a sandstorm across the beach. Moments later sheets of rain and severe wind buffeted the tents. Leaving the next morning we learned that the freak storm had lifted the kite storage tent and the dinner tent during the night from the concrete stakes and totally destroyed both. Lucky no one was inside.

Flying back home brought some added adventure and a few scary moments. There was a flight delay in Rome because of the rain storm. That made a tight connection for us in Philadelphia. I was coming down with something the last few days and not feeling that well as we ran through the airport to get through customs and to our transfer connection gate. On the flight to Denver I passed out briefly and the flight attendant brought me oxygen. Then while driving home from the Denver airport I had an excruciating pain in my back and had to go to the emergency for what turned out to be a kidney stone. The last few days have been spent recovering in bed and the back yard lawn lounge remembering the lovely time on the beach at San Vito, Sicily.

An array of George's kites flying with Melanie's High Fashion Dress kite and House Head kite

Pierre Fabre flying his Space Dummy at Gibellina

Michel Bougard from Nantes France perparing his mobile kite

A kite shop on the street in San Vito

Mikio Toki and Makoto Ohye working on the Japanese sand garden

Painted face kites by Robert Trapanier of Montreal

A large spinning 'bol' by Edwardo Borghetti of Italy

George's Bird Man kite at the end of the day

For more photos of the San Vito lo Capo International Kite Festival go to the slide show.

JAPAN ON THE WIND

2009-05-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

There is a deep history and connection to kites and kite celebrations in Japan that inspires a great admiration in me. It was years ago in the mid seventies that these artful and wondrous flying objects introduced me to the world of kites in a big way. I tried my hand at splitting bamboo while living in Hawaii, gathered from the bamboo forests high over the city of Honolulu, carefully splitting them, shaving them to even the spar bend and balancing the bamboo to the requirements of the kite “bones”. My first copies of the Japanese kite would often end in many broken bones and, eventually, a switch to crash proof fiberglass rod. It was a dream of mine back then to travel to Japan to learn from the masters.

This year was probably my fifth trip to Japan. I was invited by my friend, Masaaki Modegi, the president of the Japan Kite Association for a second tour of the kite festivals in Aomori, Uchinada and Hamamatsu. I arrived in Japan with traveling companions, Jon and Karen Burkhardt, kite makers from the Washington DC area and Clyde Cook, from New Zealand who brought a group of Peter Lynn’s kites with him. Melanie was unfortunately enmeshed in her student’s finals at the University of Colorado art department and couldn’t join me.

On our first night in Japan we were treated to a welcome dinner at Mr. Modegi’s Taimeiken Restaurant. Well known in Tokyo and the Nihonbashi neighborhood as the best European cuisine restaurant in all of Japan. Started by Mr. Modegi’s father in pre-war Tokyo, Modegi-san has taken both his father’s love of cooking and his passion for Japanese and world kites. His father created a kite museum in the upstairs floor of the restaurant and features his collection of traditional kites from all over Japan as well as examples from the world. The collection packs glass cases, hangs from the walls and ceiling with barely a space left for this astounding collection of the art and craft of kites.

The next early morning I took Jon and Karen on a tour of the Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market. This place is a must see for all who visit Japan. The market is the central hub for all the fish that are brought in and transported to markets and restaurants across Japan and the world. There is a dizzying array of plastic cartons of fresh fish, eel, octopus, big and small fish and some that I have never seen in my life. An early morning auction house is filled with bidders for huge frozen carcasses of tuna that go for $4,000US and up each. The market is a chaotic yet highly organized scene of small transport carts motoring down narrow market corridors and a bustle of buyers and sellers for the lucrative fish trade. The amount of fish coming in every day to the Tsukiji Fish Market is mind boggling. It always amazes me when I visit the market that there is anything left in the oceans.

We flew later that day to the city of Aomori in the north tip of the main island of Japan. It is close to the north island of Hokkaido across the isthmus. We stayed at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Sato and were hosted royally with fabulous meals and comfortable quarters there at the Sato house. Mr. Sato has a dental practice in the front of the large rambling house while Mrs. Sato has a kite making studio upstairs. I have known Mrs. Sato for many years and have enjoyed her sweet Japanese demeanor, her cute laugh and her kite making skills. She has also had a career as an internationally famed Japanese opera singer.

We spent most of the next few days there visiting three local elementary schools where we were entertained by the school children before doing kite workshops with them and flying demonstrations in the playgrounds. A kite festival was held in the Fujisaki township on a river bed park with groups of children performing opening ceremony band performances and Taiko drumming groups.

A welcome party was held at the local community center with local members of the kiting community. We were told that we would enjoy a “cultural experience” there. Jon, Karen, Clyde and I were ushered into a tatami matted room and were each dressed in traditional Japanese wear by a group of women. Karen took the longest to outfit with a meticulous and colorful dress kimono and emerged transformed. We were then ushered into another tatami mat and shoji screen tea room and given the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, a meditative and graceful preparation of green tea in a spare and slow motion presentation of the sublime gift of a warm cup of tea in an exquisitely simple ceramic cup.

It was also prime cherry blossom time up in this northern township and a tour was given of the Hirosaki Koen Park grounds in central Fujisaki. This is an enormous park complex featuring the historic Hirosaki castle tower and moat system throughout the grounds and surrounded by the most spectacular display of cherry blossoms I have ever witnessed. It was like a spring snowfall in flower petals. People were strolling among the tree lined pathways, across arched red bridges crossing the moats, young blossom revelers spread blue plastic tarps across the open areas enjoying their friendships and partying into the night when the trees are lit up in a colorful splendor. It was a magical and beautiful sight.

After we said our “arigatos” and “sayonara” to Mr. and Mrs. Sato we flew to Kanazawa on the central western coast of Japan. The Japan Kite Association annual convention and kite festival is held in the nearby seaside town of Uchinada. The gathering of kite clubs from all over Japan featured a welcome party in the town hall with a sumptuous feast of Japanese food, sushi and free flowing beer and saki. A woman’s taiko drumming group pounded on stage, mayors spoke, Modegi-san gave a rousing speech. All the food was gulped up in minutes.

The next day we were taken to the beachside kite festival field where tents were put up for the kite teams and groups of children arrived for the special children’s kite flying day. Large traditional Japanese kites were lofted into the air. We had been told to fly our kites well away from the other kites but wherever we went it seemed we were smack in the middle of their upwind running paths. Long lines of kids ran in the much too light winds towing the ropes to the giant kites at the other end of the beach. They ran, laughed and collapsed as the kite then gently floated back to the sand.

We flew our kites again the following day when teams from all over Japan flew their large kites. There was a group of paraglider “Peel” kite flyers with motorized back pack fans traversing the beach all day and avoiding the lines of the kites. A large red sailed ship kite was an unusual addition to the Japanese traditional kites on display along the beach. An attempt to fly the ship was made but the wind was too light for this very heavy structural kite.

Our next stop on the tour was south-east to the Pacific shore of Japan. We traveled to Hamamatsu.by bullet train…which is true to it’s name. Waiting at the train station platform as the trains pass through is like a horizontal rocket launching pad. The trains whooshed through in a blazing white and blue striped line and had me trying to anticipate the impossible digital camera capture.

Hamamatsu is known for it’s centuries old traditional Japanese kite festival during the Golden Week and Children’s Day festivities of early May. The festival dates back four hundred years and features some of the most elegant and beautifully crafted large kites in all of Japan. They are like flying ‘shoji’ screens masterfully crafted from bamboo and Japanese paper. Each prefecture or township in Hamamatsu sends teams of kite flyers to the festival. Kites are sponsored by citizens who have a new born son or grandson during the previous year. The sponsoring family name is put on the corner of the kite from the prefecture. If the kite does well during the afternoon of kite battles, the boy will also do well in life. And if the kite is taken down in the chaotic tangle of ropes and tugging teams…well, too bad.

Thousands participate in this seasoned kite battle dressed in traditional kite flying garb, hapi coat emblazoned with the team emblem, wrap around trousers, two toed snap on shoes, head band and team color gloves. Support groups of banner teams parade around the field with groups of horn players belting out a tune that starts to engrain itself on the brain. Parties go on into the nights as well with parades and pagoda-like wheeled carts festooned with lights and seated children clanging cymbals inside. It is a wild scene. Even my second time there brings me to a sensory overload of this culture’s facility for celebration and community spirit.

We were given a tour of the Hamamatsu Kite Museum as well that features the history of the festival and a grand display hall of an array of prefecture kites with traditional red, white and blue graphic emblems and designs. The displays show sounds and sights of the festival and video screens showing the lively action on the field of the kite battles.

The day ended earlier than we wanted as an overcast day started to drizzle and rain on the kite teams. Some of the kites were pulled in with soaked paper hanging from the frames. We darted between the team tents with saki parties going on inside. A moment later we were on the bullet train again for the hour and a half zip back to Tokyo and to our homeward flights.

As always, my visit to Japan has me wanting more. The flavor of the country is one of graciousness, color, courtesy and artful celebrationism. I never realized that my small foray into the world of Japanese kites many years ago would introduce me to so many friends, such a rich culture, giving me a deep appreciation and love for this country. “Domo Arigato Gozaimas”…thank you!...for my passion for making kites and a life in the wind.

Hamamatsu kite team flyers

Mrs. Sato at her home tea ceremony room

kids making sled kites at a Fujisaki elementary school

I gloried in total immersion into cherry blossom time!

the 'Peel' parafoil fan team

an inflatable crab by Peter Lynn flown in Uchinada

two new 'Flying Man' kites I made for the Japan kite festivals

For more pictures and descriptions of the kite trip to Japan go to the slide show.

EMPTY SPACES

2009-03-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

We installed a show of Melanie's installation work at the Access Gallery in downtown Denver's Santa Fe Art District. The work is a combination of bird mobiles, house shaped screens stretched and suspended in the space, two light sources to create a moving shadow show of flying birds onto the surfaces of the screens and an early 80's sound track that Melanie created using "peeper" frog recordings along with old 78 hand cranked turntable scratch recordings played backwards.

The installation uses sewn panels of fiberglass window screen with appliqued bird images and painted picket fences enclosing the two spaces on each side of the gallery. Small fans are placed to move the bird mobiles creating fluctuating shadows across the ceiling, walls and screens of the installation. The effect is like a bird avery let loose from the confines of an urban scene.

Melanie's statement about the show:

I am interested in constructing spaces that conjure up memory and non specific narratives. My interest in installation art derives from a desire to create an all encompassing environment that surrounds the viewer and allows them to experience stories drawing from their own personal narratives. Empty Spaces alludes to shadow plays, illusion, puppetry and memory.

I remember reading somewhere that the crow is considered to be the ‘one-eyed seer’. The Crow looks at the world with first one eye, then the other - cross-eyed. In the Mayan culture, cross-eyeds had the privilege and duty of looking into the future. In a certain way because of my cross eyed, one eyed vision, I have long identified with the crow. It is a black bird and my name means the ‘dark one’. It sees with one eye or cross eyed as I do. I have always felt that the role of the artist is to see into the future in a new way that helps to bring about a paradigm shift. I have strived to see through my disability and have used my altered vision to change my own perception of the world through my work.

With this exhibition I want to thank Access Gallery for giving me the chance to do this installation. I also want to give special thanks to my partner George Peters for all his help, support and our constant dialog about ideas and how to express them visually.

Melanie Walker

The show "Empty Spaces" will be up until April 10th, 2009

The Access Gallery is located at 909 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, Colorado

These images and more can be viewed on the slide show

CAMEREYE VOYAGEUR

2009-03-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

We just put up a new window installation at the neighborhood Blink Gallery here in Boulder. The show features some older works but put in a more concentrated form. It includes works from an installation done for a photo show at the Houston Center for Photography during the national FotoFest.Biennial in Houston.

'Camereye Voyageur' features large photographic screens, two 'Camereye' nine foot high puppets that are manipulated by remote strings and five tripod 'peep' camera viewing boxes. Each of the cameras feature a tableau made three dimensional through layering of transparent photo images within the bellows of the light collecting cameras. The puppets are camera headed stick figures with moving arms and legs with lights in the lens and heads that give them a glow at night.

This is the third window installation we've done in the Blink Gallery window. The gallery is sadly closing because of changes in the economy but will continue in it's corporate and private art consultation business in the upstairs offices. The logo of Blink Gallery is two wide open eyes. We thought these puppets would be a perfect match for the last harrah show.

Our statement about the show:

The camera’s lens has radically affected our vision of the world. It flattens dimension, changes the real to the super real, captures time and focuses equally on the micro and macro by extending our eye. We have sent cameras instead of ourselves to orbit distant planets to take pictures of the surfaces, dive into atmospheres and wander the dusty landscapes searching for evidence of clues to our own existence here on this water and rock globe. Like puppets on long strings of radio waves we control their movements and click their shutters. The images are then sent back along the radio strings to be assembled, interpreted and analyzed. The photos tell a deep story.

The images of distant worlds show us they obey the laws of light and dark with images of rocks and ice, dust and gas. Our remote vision through the lens of space telescopes shows us how incredible this space over our heads really is.

“Who would believe that so small a space could contain an image of the entire universe?”

Leonardo di Vinci
On the camera obscura

The tableau views inside the cameras

Stone-Leaf-Fish-Bone

Rock-Ladder-Window

Wolf-Bat-Cave

Glass-Earth-Humming Bird

Excavation-Hole-Monkey

Pulling the strings causes the passers-by on the sidewalk to stop and look at the camera-headed puppets dancing in the window. The overheard comments are either "Wierd!" or "Cool!".

Blink Gallery is located at 1011 Pearl Street in Boulder.

The show will continue through to the end of March when the gallery will be closing.

GALLERY O

2009-01-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

With our new house studio gallery finally completed we had an inaugural showing on Barack Obama's inaugural day. Included in the tiny space is a showing of over one hundred photos from the news services from his life and campaign. The gallery was painted blue on the day that he was elected to office and opened on inauguration day.

Maybe we're jumping on the Obamania wagon but it is fitting to make a grass roots space here close to home to show not only our miniature works but invite other artists as well to show in our alternative art space. The response to our small "grand" opening was great with lots of friends and neighbors attending.

In the new Gallery O the emphasis will be on the miniature arts. Melanie and I are in the process of putting together ideas for the shows. Upcoming shows this year will include exhibits of miniature kites, a Bird House show, a photo show of turn of the century Tintype photography, a miniature printmaker show, drawings on paper and a show of peep boxes featuring a revised look at natural history.

If you're too far away to drop by for the openings (complete with miniature drinks and foods) please check our blog occasionally and see what's showing. Or go to our new Gallery O blog with announcements of upcoming shows, photos of the current works on display and further writings on the "Art of the Miniature".

TODD WALKER - A Legacy of Images

2009-01-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

This month was an opening of Melanie's father's photographic art works at the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. Todd Walker passed in 1998 but left a great legacy in the photo and art world. In his 81 years he worked as a set painter for RKO studios, working on Citizen Kane and polishing the floors that Fred Astaire danced on, a flight training instructor for the Army Air Corps during WWII and a free-lance photographer for Chevrolet during the 50's. He taught photography at the prestigious Art Center School in Los Angeles as well as the University of Florida in Gainsville and the University of Arizona in Tucson. He spent the later part of his life after retirement from teaching being a digital pioneer after spending many years generating more than 12,000 photographic works, screen prints, lithographs and prints done in historical photographic processes. He had a small press called the Thumbprint Press and self published art books, printing and binding them in his home studio in Tucson. His work spanned many directions as he explored processes of digital photography in the early 80's creating his own photo software for manipulating images. In this work he pioneered much of what we take for granted in PhotoShop.

This will be an important showing of Todd's works since his passing. The show will be up through February 21st and will be a part of the annual Photo L.A. art exhibition.

FLYING ON NEW YEARS DAY

2009-01-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

Every year for about twenty seven years we have flown kites on Jan first. It's a good way to get the cob webs out, celebrate the first day of a new year and see who is crazy enough to come out and fly in the middle of the winter. Some years were spent fighting blizzards, snow storms and swirling winds on top of Bald Mountain a short distance from Boulder. Then a few years back we discovered the winds of the prairie greenbelt surrounding the city. Sometimes perfect winds, warm days or absolute blow downs and hold on to your hats. It blows the old year away and puts smiles on all the friends that are brave enough to come out. Old Christmas cookie tins are emptied and hot chocolate warms the bellies.

If you're ever out here and don't have anything to do but recover from too much partying the night before, come on out and fly a kite with us.

the greenbelt plateau makes a perfect kite flying field

we flew a lot of kites that day

Santa Chris & Mrs. Elizabeth Claus showed up on their new red scooter

So happy high flying 2009!

THE NEW BLUE GALLERY

2009-01-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

Out of the ashes the phoenix bird is born....or rather our new tool shed has arisen. It was finished on the day before Christmas after a two month long construction period following the fire we had back in September that crisped and blackened the structure and the surrounding trees . The new shed roof features a "flying nun's hat" design that raises the interior ceiling space considerably.

With the new outside patio area and cover in place, track lighting and interior cabinets we've both concluded that the space is much too nice to put old burnt and carbon stained tools in. It is now our studio/house art gallery space and summer party kitchen. We'll relegate the tools to our dirty space studio numero 2 at "Rancho De Ville" north of town and out in the prairie lands where the sounds of table saws and loud music won't bother anyone.

In our pint size art gallery we will probably be showing smaller works of ours on a regular basis. The folks here in the Boulder area will receive notices for the openings starting in the spring. Shows of miniature kites, small sculptures, photos, paintings and other themes will occupy the walls and counters. Intimate is the operational word with the three or four person at a time capacity. The new outside garden patio area holds a much larger space for the chat and drinks room. We're both excited about the new gallery space and will somehow find time between all the other projects coming up to put on a show or two. Come if you can!

George and friend, Todd... the intrepid builders at work

and....the finished patio and new gallery painted BlueBama and white.

...and here's the back alley blue view

Yes, this really is where we do most of our work. Sometimes it astounds even us that we fabricate these large scale projects here in our home studio space and then truck them to the far corners of the country and world. We've used the alley as well as our spill over space with awnings for cover. The curious passers by sometime get petitioned to help us along with nieghbors. We do have our Rancho De Ville dirty space studio as well as Melanie's home space in nearby Louisville for sewing projects. Never enough room! Then again, our favorite studio space, the small space in our heads always seems limitless.

DRAW BRIDGE

2008-11-30T21:50:00.000-08:00

We just put the finishing touches on the commission in the newly restored Civil Engineering School at Oregon State University in Corvallis. The whole process took about four years to completion surviving a state projects construction freeze while testing our artistic diligence.

The idea behind the work concerns the primary task of thinking, drawing and making. The etched glass drawings on the glass elevator enclosure relate to the planning and design of civil engineering projects like bridges and city structures. The three dimensional bridges emerge from the drawing wall into realized forms.

Several weeks work and a marathon assembly session with the boys from “BEAST” (Blackstock Emergency Art Services Team) brought the bridge truss forms into shape. The 20’ and 25’ units were then cut in half for the trip out to Oregon.

We decided to truck the project out ourselves towing our silver “Bio-Bug” behind in order to get back home again. The drive was long but made to fly fast with Barack Obama’s books on CD, “Dreams of My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope”. It was a treat to ride with Barack's stories, humor and wisdom.

After two days on the road through four states we pulled into the loading dock of the building and entered the site that was still under construction. I was there several months ago doing the glass etching mural work that featured graphics of bridge forms and engineering images but had not seen the finished glass mural installed yet. It actually looked quite wonderful in the space.

Pulling out the bridge truss sections from the truck, we quickly got to work and the pieces were connected and hung in the fifty foot high atrium. It took one day to get everything up. The bridge forms arc in the skylight space and have reflective and prismatic materials that flash color.

Jump in the bug and head home. A job done!

THE BIG BURN

2008-10-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

Years ago when Melanie and I first collaborated on a project together we did a series of outdoor house themed sculptures called “The House Project”. One of these houses was entitled “Fire House” for obvious reasons.

This image came back to us in a quite literal way recently when we were attending a music performance at a local venue here in Boulder. The phone rang in my pocket in the theater just after they told everyone to turn off their cell phones during the performance. I clinched the phone in my pocket to muffle the embarrassing ring. I snuck out to the lobby to see who had left the message. It was from Sanjay, our next door neighbor saying “GEORGE! YOUR STUDIO IS ON FIRE!”. Another muffled ring and message seconds after that first call was our other neighbor, Mary with a similar message and that the fire fighters were there dowsing the fire on our tool shed.

Melanie and I ran back home five blocks arriving breathless to the sight that no one wants to see. The blue and red lights surrounding the entire neighborhood with hoses snaking up the sidewalk and into our back yard where the Airworks studio and little wood shop shed are. The fire fighters had just put out the flames and asked me if I was the owner. The scene was surreal seeing the blackened trees and the stories of the neighbors about how high the fire had been and how freighting it was. Luckily the main studio was unharmed thanks to the heroic efforts of neighbors Sanjay and Brad. The sixty foot tower of flames would have taken the studio as well during the high winds that night that fanned the flames. They both grabbed garden hoses and kept the roof of the studio from the flames and heat.

The neighbors gathered in the alley each telling their stories of mysterious bangs and sparks that suddenly leaped into an inferno. The fire inspectors passed clipboards around for each of the witnesses to the heated event. As firefighters wrapped up their hoses one neighbor brought out a tub of ice cream and cups to cool things down and chat excitedly about the fire.

The next day revealed the extent of the damage. The inside was like some macabre set of the film “Alien” dripping with water, melted plastic bins of screws and washers and blackened power tools. Maybe half the tools in the tightly packed “smallest wood shop in the world” shed were beyond recognition. The fire had started outside near the trash bins and worked its way inside through a window and the eaves of the shed. Arson?...an electric short in the power lines above?...a tossed cigarette? All these were ruled out by the inspectors.

We’re now slowly getting back to normal and cleaning up the charred mess. Another wood shop has already been drawn up and we might be able to save a lot of the original structure that is believed to be over a hundred years old and has foot wide wooden board walls taken when the forests around Boulder were of virgin forest size.

Melanie has been photographing the remains which may lead to an artful conclusion to a horrible and heated event here.

the tool shop and outside dining area before the fire

.....and after

The fire rose into the surrounding

tree canopy and burned a neighbor's

garage.

the inside of the tool shop melted into a pile of dripping

plastic bins and containers

the heros of the night

the exact time of the big melt

M.T. Ligget's cat head survived the flames

DRAW BRIDGES - Oregon State University

2008-10-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

We finally started work on a project for the new Civil Engineering building at the Oregon State University in Corvallis. After a two year delay by the state legislators, the construction of the building is under way again and I drove out to begin the glass mural portion of the commission. The 34 etched glass panels will be arranged on a three story glass elevator shaft. The work was sandblasted for us by space suited Walter Hales of Corvallis with an old friend from Hawaii, Tim Havens from Portland helping with the application of the mask patterning.

The artwork is entitled "Draw Bridges" and blends etched glass images of bridges along with three arching trusses through the overhead space. Below are photos from the proposal model.

I drove out with a VW bug full of rubber mask patterning that was computer laser cut by our local Boulder Sign Company back in Colorado. We were given a work space at the Smith Glass shop in Corvallis we spent a few days applying the patterns and moving the glass out to Walter, our sandblaster.

Applying the frisket mask to the glass...

....and blasting away

We'll be finishing the sculptural part of the project in November and installing the hanging bridge elements to the work. We'll post the end result when it's all finished.

DIEPPE INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL

2008-09-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

We packed up our kite bags to head off for the Dieppe International Kite Festival in Dieppe, France. The city of Dieppe is along the North coast of France in Normandy and is one of the premier international kite events in Europe. International guest flyers from all over the globe came to enjoy the winds, the French cuisine, long time friendships and the seaside ambiance of this charming city. Located along a stretch of chalk cliffs with a 15th century castle overlooking the broad pebble beach and grass park it is a lovely place to spend ten days flying kites.

We were greeted the first day by a strong wind and rains that canceled the traditional kite flyer’s parade through the streets of Dieppe on Sunday. People in Dieppe were saying that the summer has been unusually rainy as we all checked the weather report daily from a cyber hut set up on the flying field. Despite six days of intermittent bands of rain and clouds we still managed to pack in a lot of kite flying and gatherings with our international kite friends for meals in the afternoon and evenings. It seems that nothing short of a hurricane can dampen the spirits of the positive minded kite enthusiast.

The “kite village” featured several kite fields for each particular venue. There were single line kites along a broad stretch of grassy park, dual and four-line sport kites at the other end of the park and the giant kites on the huge stretch of pebble beach facing the ocean front. There were displays and vendors as well as the international kite village tents along the single line field. Each invited guest delegation from around the world puts up a display of their country’s kite traditions for the public to see.

While this was my sixth or seventh time at the festival, it never fails to delight. The wait for the perfect winds coming off from the sea each afternoon is taken by visits with kite friends and walks in town. Each Saturday there is a huge farmer’s market along the main street of Dieppe featuring a wide array of produce, flowers, fish market stands, food stalls and other merchants. By the end of the week the clouds lifted, the sun came out and the winds reached almost perfect conditions for putting up the whole sky circus. Saturday night featured one of the most spectacular night flying events I’ve seen in a long time with thousands attending. By Sunday morning we all took to the streets with our banners, music and kites for a closing day parade instead of the rained out opening day disappointment and paraded to thank the city of Dieppe for this wonderful event.

The pictures tell it all…

George's Flying Man kites on the field

Melanie with the Flame and Bali banner array

kite line banners made a big spash in the field

a giant puppet danced

on the line of a kite

a kite by artist kitemaker,

Steve Brockett from Wales

Mikoto Ohye with his Japanese Odako kites

Claudio Cappelli - Italian kitemaker

& artist extraordinaire

Robert Brassington came

all the way from Tasmania

Historic kites made from cotton, spruce & bamboo

A kite powered bicyclist

The kitemakers,

Team Mangalore

from India

Then the parade took to the streets with drums drumming,

horns blarring, puppets strutting and colors flying

birds of a feather drum together...

Au revoir Dieppe! We'll see you in 2010

A wind tunnel, some colored clouds and a stage village...

2008-08-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

WIND TUNNEL

We’ve started on a city transportation project here in Boulder that was postponed about four years while the city went through some belt tightening. The project is actually an addition to a pedestrian/ bicycle underpass to the University of Boulder campus. We finished the east side of the tunnel entry in 2004. Now we’re onto the west side. The project will involve incised patterning into the “Wind Tunnel” walls, aluminum pattern facing, four wind vane pillars at each side of a pedestrian/bike bridge, a spiral graphic in the entry plaza and tile murals on the wing walls of a wind pattern image similar to the other side.

architectural plan illustration for the "Wind Tunnel" pedestrian/bike tunnel and plaza

First phase of concrete pour and patterning

The East "Wind Tunnel" entry - finished in 2004

So far we’ve completed the incised patterning in the concrete walls and will work on the other parts of the project as it progresses through the end of this year and beginning of next. We'll keep publishing updates as the work proceeds.

CLOUD CELLS

We’ve also just finished a commission for the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Aurora. It is a series of sunscreen “clouds” that arc around a stair atrium in a new wing of the Anchutz Campus of the University complex. The work was commissioned through the Colorado State Arts Council as part of their Art in Public Places program. The concept was to merge the shapes of clouds and micro cellular structures in a colorful merging of similar forms. The Anchutz campus is a new addition to this huge medical studies extension of the University of Colorado. We had completed another commission here at the newly completed Anchutz Cancer Pavilion in 2002

The long reach to the clouds

ETOWN - STAGE SET FOR THE DNC BUELL THEATER SHOW

A panic call from Nick and Helen Forster requesting a stage set background for their nationally broadcast “ETown” radio show put us into the sweat shop to design and build the set pieces in a record three days. With little sleep we rushed the sunscreen set to it's destination for early morning 7 am set up. Arriving at the theater loading dock we started setting everything up but there was a noticeable lack of stage helpers...in fact, we were the only ones there. Eventually someone arrived and asked us what we were doing. "We're doing the set for the Etown show...is there someone to help lower the fly battens for us?". There was a confused look on the man's face. "This is the Auditorium Theater...you want the Buell Theater...that's next door". Oops!

We found the proper stage door to the Temple Buell Theater in the Denver Center for Performing Arts complex and set everything up. The show was during the frantically packed Democratic National Convention and was videotaped for a television broadcast in the near future. A great line up of musicians included James Taylor, Neil Young, David Crosby, Irma Thompson, Anni DiFranco and special guest Robert Kennedy Jr. and made for a fun, sold out show during the DNC nomination party for Barak Obama.

The view of the model plan

...and the curtain comes up!

Ooooklahoma where the wind comes whippin'...

2008-07-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

We drove out to a little community called Sand Springs near Tulsa, Oklahoma this last week to install a series of mobiles in a brand new community center there. We've been working on the pieces for a few weeks and were about to ship them off when we discovered that the whole project could fit into our little silver BioBeetle. In fact, we could have fit five times the amount in if we had them. Preferring any chance to take what most people call a "vacation", we drove instead of shipping the pieces and flying out to meet them. It was the right choice.

We hit the road with the new CD book of short stories, "When You Are Engulfed In Flames" by David Sedaris to keep us laughing as the Kansas corn fields and grain silos blurred by our windows. We took back roads to see a little more of the countryside, finding an incongruous and amazing array of rock formations just off the road to Garden City in the south west of the state. A peculiar geological formation in an otherwise very flat state.

Heading east we wanted to stop by Greensburg after seeing a documentary about the devastation that happened last year from an enormous tornado that literally flattened this historic farming community town. Just before getting there, though, our eyes were caught by a quarter mile of fence line featuring the fantastic art of a local eccentric folk artist. Wind whirligigs made from highway signs spun in the breeze and tall metal totems, each with a name and curious comment posted at it's base stood in long rows along the fence. We both hopped out and started snapping photos which led us down the roadway and around the side street to even more. A tan faced man in a pickup truck was just passing and stopped. He leaned his head out the window and said "How do you like the art?"...."Did you do all this?" I asked gesturing toward the colorful line up extending down the fence. "Yes, sir. I sure did....go over there to my studio and I'll show you more when I get back." We walked down the street scattered with bits and pieces of his artworks and old rusty tractors parked in front of his very full studio entry.

He soon returned to show us around with his morning coffee in hand. Introduced himself proudly as M.T. Liggett and started in on his stories that he has rehearsed probably a thousand times from passing motorists caught up, as we were, in his artful spell. All along the eaves of his studio shed were street signs, lines of coffee mugs....thousands of them, welding equipment, sheets of steel on the floor, tools, drawings, paint cans, hand drawn signs. In a Kansan drawl he started in on his harangue about how his art had upset the town folk and how much they hated it and wanted him to stop. When anyone would complain, he said he would make a totem figure of that person and then put it out on the highway. Many of the caricature figures had rather rude comments written underneath them. The mayor of the town, the council members and the "Self Anointed Bourgeois Elitists" suffered the most. The locals were not the only ones stung by his steel sculptures and barbed wit. There were political themes too with well known figures shot with his arc welder and painted with garish colors. He would curse up a storm over the crimes of George Bush for starting a war worse than Vietnam. He added that his own twenty two year stint in the military took him all over the world and gave him a better perspective than "these ignorant fools". His closing line as we excused ourselves for our trip to Tulsa was "You can't fix stupid!".

We told him we'd stop by on the way back to Boulder for a short visit and maybe purchase one of his works. He went right back to working in his studio shed under the canopy of coffee mugs lining the ceiling. Apparently, his mug collection that stretched along every rafter inside and out consisted of over 11,000 mugs. He was proud of not really knowing how many there were and seemed perturbed at the question.

We drove through the town of Greensburg amazed at the recovery efforts that town has experienced in the last year and a half. New houses were sprouting everywhere along with the green shoots of leaves coming from the broken limbs of the bare trees. The town had decided to rebuild to platinum Leeds standard so there were solar panels and green building everywhere going on in this new boom town.

We arrived in Sand Springs and set to installing the mobiles at the new community center. One area was a stairwell that was filled with scaffolding. Difficult to hang the works that we had designed for the site but we put them up and wove them through the boards layed horizontally in the space. We both felt that the scaffolding was probably more interesting than what we had made for the space.

In two days the job was done and we made our way back to Boulder through Kansas again. We drove through an absolutely beautiful landscape of hills and almost miniaturized valleys, trees and buttes. Not what you would think of for a Kansas landscape. We visited M.T. Liggett's studio again on the way back and picked up a small metal sculpture of Medusa's head. Some of his works borrow heavily on Greek mythology. We had a good visit and wished him luck with his detractors. He gave us a cat head sculpture with our purchase and we gave him a left over "feather" from our project. He seemed pleased and went back to his colorful work.

Driving back we grabbed photos when we could. Going through cattle country we tended to get stuck behind large smelly cattle trucks just after they dropped their bovine passengers off at the Cargil meat processing plant. Squeezed between them we grabbed a dirt road out to a large plume of smoke just off the road. A fire? We pulled up alongside the burning field just as a guy on a four wheel ATV with a large tank and torch pulled up to our car..."It'll cost you $5 if you want to watch the fire".... joking, of course. He said he was burning off the chaff from the field and seemed delighted that we liked watching the flames of his work. It all seemed to fit too well into David Sedaris's book "When You Are Engulfed In Flames".

Ten hours later we arrived in Boulder and hung the Medusa head on our tool shed wall. M.T. said that he puts a bit of himself into his art and likes spreading them around the country. Worried that his work would disappear with his inevitable passing, we looked him up on the Internet when we got home and found many sites and video interviews about him and his works. Long live the passionate artist!

CERVIA INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL

2008-05-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

We flew to Italy to participate in two kite festivals at the beaches of the northern Adriatic shores. Kite friends from all over the world attended with perfect winds, warm sunny days and lots and lots of flying colors. The 28th annual Cervia International Kite festival is one of the longest running kite festivals in Europe. The festival ran for ten days, two weekends and powered by pasta and vino. We then went to another smaller festival in the beach town of Rosolina Mare near Venice to get more sun, wind and kites into the air. We love Italy!

a full sky overhead
Melanie's rabbit kite making a maiden flight and her flame banners
George's Diving Lady kite fit right into the sky over the sun bathers

Our Play Sail floated over the beach...

Meander & Meet labyrinth

2008-04-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

Last summer we installed a walking labyrinth near the Boulder Public Library here. Going to GoogleEarth recently I noticed that their three year out of date satellite photo of Boulder has been updated. It's nice to see it so prominent from outer space.

We worked harder on this than we have ever worked on any project. Almost five years arranging for all the proper permits and fundraising for the labyrinth and gathering a group of volunteers to help us with it. We hauled almost 87 tons of material in and out by wheelbarrow and sweat of brow. It took about two and a half weeks to complete. The pathways are brick lined with crusher fine gravel paths. The meandering paths leading up to the nine circuit labyrinth add a calming element to the approach and exit points to the labyrinth.

If you're ever in Boulder, it is located between the 9th street bridge and the Boulder Public library along the south bank of the Boulder Creek. It's quite a beautiful little hideaway to discover and walking the circuits with the sound of the creek is a transformative experience.

Signs of Spring

2008-03-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

We've just installed our "Snow Flower Garden" in the window of Blink Gallery here in Boulder. The installation is a collection of wooden garden trellises, "snow flowers" and some flying wooden birds suspended. We've been making these for quite a few years and putting them in our garden to add some color to the Colorado winter landscape out back. They've also been sprouting up in neighbors and friends gardens as well. They are always blooming, are deer proof and add a little cheer to the day.

The show will be up through the end of April. Blink Gallery is located at 1011 Pearl Street in Boulder.